She wasn’t asked and didn’t tell

SHE WASN’T ASKED AND DIDN’T TELL…. Amy Brian, as a Kansas Army National Guard lieutenant, served honorably in Iraq. She was part of a convoy that was hit by an IED; she worked 12-hour shifts at Camp Anaconda; and her superiors asked her to narrate award ceremonies.

By all appearances, Amy Brian is the type of proud, patriotic American we would all want to wear the uniform. Upon returning home after a tour of duty, Brian was given a job reorganizing the Kansas Army National Guard’s government purchase card program. Except now she’s been discharged — because someone found out Brian is gay. (via Sullivan)

No one in the military asked her if she was gay during her nine years in the Kansas Army National Guard. And she didn’t tell anybody in the military she was gay.

“I’d never really tried to hide my homosexuality to the close people I worked with,” she said. “And they didn’t really seem to care or think any different of it.”

But in August 2008, a Kansas Army National Guard lieutenant informed Brian she was being investigated for homosexual conduct after a female civilian co-worker at the U.S. Property and Fiscal Office said she had seen Brian kissing a woman in the checkout line at a Wal-Mart store.

From the moment the co-worker made her statement, Brian’s performance record and the sacrifices she had made to serve her country in Iraq no longer mattered.

Brian is the first gay person to be “separated” — or discharged — from the Kansas Army National Guard based on the “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy.

She joins nearly 12,500 other lesbian, gay and bisexual service members who have been discharged by the Pentagon from 1994 through 2007.

“I was not separated because of any type of misconduct but plain and simply because someone else had a problem with my sexuality,” Brian said.

The White House has said it is reviewing the DADT policy and plans to scrap it. My advice for the administration: with Amy Brian in mind, hurry.